


Coward

by Stuff (rosegardenlake)



Series: Where the Light Doesn't Reach [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abuse, Blood and Gore, Cancer, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 11:54:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15605727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosegardenlake/pseuds/Stuff
Summary: Short story for Where the Light Doesn't Reach.  Read after the main story!Back then, Lotor wished so hard that he could be like him.  He would watch his father and wonder if there was a way to turn the tide.  But Lotor would slip back into the shadows of his room.He could never be like Shiro.  Lotor was just a coward.





	Coward

**Author's Note:**

> M A J O R S P O I L E R S for Where the Light Doesn't Reach. If you haven't read past chapter 15, turn back now!

 

It’s quiet in their house.  It always has been, probably always will be, ever since Lotor’s mother passed.

It’s almost funny that their house is made of glass.  It’s a statement: look at me, look at how much I have, there’s nothing wrong, why would there be anything wrong?  We have so many things.

Part of Lotor had thought it was nice, at first, how they could buy whatever they wanted.  A new house ten times larger than their old one? Sure. All the toys, all the clothes, all the games he could want?  A new car? A maid? Two maids? A personal chef? Switch them out for new ones, add more...they suddenly had so much power.  They could do whatever they wanted. And that felt nice in it’s own way.

But the price was too high.

Their glass house has always been quiet.  And it always will be. There has never been love here.

His father used to know how to love, once, long ago.  They were a family then. Lotor loved him then.

It was just a rash, at first.  Just a rash. Maybe she had stepped into some poison oak.  Maybe an insect had bitten her. Honerva looked so perfectly healthy and happy still, just like anyone else.  But no. The news had blindsided them. A week after they found it, they were told she was dying. They were told there was nothing they could do.

But there had to be, Lotor’s dad said.  She’s _right here_.  He called everyone he knew, desperate, late into the night, through the mornings, into evenings.  There was a fire inside of him that fueled him.

There _has_ to be a way, he believed.  She’s young, she’s strong, she can _fight this_.

No.

There was nothing they could do.

They could only watch as Honerva slowly faded from healthy and happy and, just as the doctors all promised.  She melted into her bed, tired and sick. It was slow. Painful. Only months, at best, the doctors said, and maybe that would’ve been more merciful.  But it was over a year. Over three hundred and sixty-five days, eight thousand seven hundred and sixty long painful minutes, stretched and jabbed right into all of their hearts, letting them bleed out a trickle at a time, draining them.  Slowly... Surely. All Lotor’s father could do was just stand there by her side, helpless, in the middle of it, just watching, just waiting for the person he loved most in the world to just...die.

...There was nothing they could do.

He wanted to fight - he’d give anything - but there was nothing there to take the blow that could save her.  Nothing helped. Nothing eased the pain.

Lotor was young.  Too young to really understand at the time, but old enough to know.  He could feel the sharp cold in the air, the way that no one smiled anymore, how dinner was often forgotten, how he was often forgotten.  He’d watch their pain, but he couldn’t connect to the depths of it. All he really got was that they had been happy once. But they weren’t anymore.  And maybe never would be again.

“I don’t want to die,” Honerva would beg Lotor’s father, hand outstretched for his face and trembling.  Her face had been sunken in at that point, more shadows than not, and her voice was just shaken breath. There was fear in her eyes as she stared up at him, her last hope, as the inevitable crept closer.  The could feel the clock ticking, pressing in at their backs each day. Closer.

Closer.

“I don’t want to die.”  She was too weak to cry, but her voice caved.  “Please. I want to stay with you. I want to stay with our son.  Please, my love. Please. Help me...”

Lotor’s dad could just hold her hand, trembling.  He loved her more than anything, Lotor knew that, but love did not have the power to fix things.  And that’s just how it was.

“Don’t go,” Lotor could hear his father begging her through the walls some nights.  “God, please, don’t go... Don’t leave me all alone; I can’t take it. Not like this.  There must be something we can do. ...I _love you_.”

She’d whisper, “take care of our son...”

“I can’t -  Honerva, _no_...  You can’t leave me!  Don’t leave me...”

On one such night, Lotor gathered his courage and pulled himself from his bed.  The way his father spoke like that scared him and made him feel sick, but, as the weeks of it passed, Lotor began to realize that maybe he wasn’t the one most frightened after all.  Maybe there was something he could do.

So Lotor walked from his room and down the hall, wanting to assure his father that he wasn’t alone, that Lotor was there too, that he would continue to be there for him even after the inevitable happened.

And that’s when he saw his father sobbing over Honerva’s lifeless body, hands clasping to her limp ones so tightly that her fingers looked broken.  His back curved over her, tight and wracked with his heaving cries. He was warped in agony’s tight constricting grip.

“Dad,” Lotor whispered, but his dad couldn’t hear.  Lotor stared down at his mother, at her empty face, and even then, even a child, he just knew.  “...Dad...” Lotor tried, walking forward carefully, hand outstretched. “It’ll be okay... We’ll be alright.  We still have each other.”

But his father rose like a monster spewing from the shadows, barreling through the room, roaring, “Get out!”  He bellowed into Lotor’s face, voice booming, spittle flying, and Lotor stumbled back in fear. “Get away from us!  Honerva’s _dead_ !  She’s _gone_ !  Nothing matters anymore!   _Nothing_!”  And he threw Lotor out of the room so hard that he hit the wall in the hallway.  The picture frame fell and broke, shattering over Lotor. He bled red all over the ground, but his dad just turned, slamming the door in his face.

Lotor sat there, in the hallway, his blood dripping to the floor as he could hear his father’s broken cries through the door.  And he knew. He knew there was nothing he could do.

Lotor had no one.  ...But he could see the pain in his father as it ate away at him, even the days after her death, maybe more.  It destroyed him. The same grey loneliness that Lotor felt, shallow waves at his feet, had crashed and drowned out his father.  And Lotor pitied him.

Many nights they went hungry.  His father slowly learned to pretend for others, most of the time anyway.  To put on a happier face, to act like he was just a simple man, mourning his wife in a normal way, but he’d come home and...Lotor knew the truth of it.  He was angrier, quieter, changed.

A large disconnect grew between the two of them and there, it stayed.

Lotor learned to avoid his father.  He couldn’t change things. Why should he fight for his father’s attention?  There was no love in that house anymore.

Shiro’s family was the only good thing left in Lotor’s life, like the sun in a world of cold darkness.  He would walk from the cold of his own house and be welcomed into the warmth of theirs. They accepted Lotor into their lives with open arms.  They fed him. He was welcome to their table whenever he wanted - breakfast, lunch, or dinner, or any time in between and Shiro always smiled for him.  Always encouraged. Even on days when Lotor would try to find relief from his own problems by venting them right at Shiro, Shiro would just...smile. His eyes were always warm with that understanding of his, like he _got it_.  Like he heard the pain in Lotor’s heart and not the words he tried to use as weapons and he forgave him immediately.

Shiro was so strong.  He was the only one who was there for him in a time he was afraid and alone and frightened.  He had no one else. No one. Shiro was it.

Lotor looked up to Shiro more than he’d ever dare to admit and he pretended like it wasn’t true, but he knew Shiro knew.  Because Shiro was just like that. A quiet kind of intelligence that he didn't have to use like a weapon.

Soft, sweet, brave.  Things Lotor could never be.

That was Shiro.

Back then, Lotor wished so hard that he could be like him.  He would watch his father and wonder if there was a way to turn the tide.  But Lotor would slip back into the shadows of his room.

He could never be like Shiro.  Lotor was just a coward.

 

Lotor tsks as he hangs off his bed and scrolls through his phone.   _Why_ does Shiro think he needs to post so many damn photos of himself?  He’s happy...everyone gets it. _Everyone_.  And it seems like everyone and their grandmothers are commenting on it too.  Congratulating him. Telling him how great he is. He has to already know.

God.  It’s so much.  As if Shiro doesn’t already have everything else...

Lotor tsks again as he grudgingly likes the image and then tosses his phone away.  He’s got homework to be done, but he’s in a foul mood. He’s always felt like he’s in a race with Shiro, like if he wins against him, he can get a taste of the easiness Shiro flies through life with.  But with an acceptance into a college like this, how can he outdo Shiro now...?

He should be happy for him.  He knows it. Shiro’s done so much for him.  Lotor knows he owes him and, in his way, Shiro is the most important person to him he knows, but... _this_?  Like Shiro needs another reason for people to congratulate him.  He’s got to be the luckiest person Lotor’s ever known. All golden and smart and beloved.  And Lotor has got to be the saddest most repulsive person he’s ever know...

The back door slams shut and the whole house trembles.  Lotor sighs, turning his eyes outside. It’s dark and blue, stormy, as always.  He wishes his father would just never come home sometimes.

And just as he thinks it, he hears his father bellowing through the house, “ _Lotor!_ ”

Lotor clenches his teeth and pushes himself to his feet.  He walks out and down the staircase, into the entry hall. “What is it?”  He says icily...and stops.

His father is standing in their pristine doorway, clothes drenched.  His father has always been a stickler about cleanliness. White carpet, white couches, white walls, white tile - anything that’s dirty he could lock on immediately.

There’s a puddle at his feet that collects and spreads through their carefully cared for floors.  There’s red in it, draining from the cotton of his pants. It’s on his shirt. Dripping from his arms.

Ice is pushing its way through Lotor’s veins as he stares at all the blood.  “What... What is that on your clothes...?” Lotor asks slowly.

“Where are the fucking maids?”  His father grits. “I can’t get this shit all over the house.”

Lotor watches him for a split second longer before pulling himself together.  “...I’ll go fetch a towel...” Lotor walks off to the bathroom and brings a towel back.  His father snatches it away and starts cleaning the mess up.

“Why is there blood on you...?”  Lotor asks again. He means to sound bolder than he feels, but it comes out quiet, winded.

“Hit a deer,” he spits.  “The damn thing wouldn’t stop fucking bleeding everywhere...  What a fucking mess.”

“Oh.”  Lotor stands there for awhile longer.  There’s a lot of blood... A lot... Did his father drag it from the side of the road?

A deer.  ...But what else could it be?  Lotor watches him for a moment longer before turning back up the staircase.  “I’ll...I’ll be in my room.”

He tries to do his homework but something’s not sitting right in his stomach.  A deer...? It makes sense. Why wouldn’t it be a deer? But seeing his father come into the house in a shock of red clothing stunned him.  Maybe that’s it...playing on his imagination. The stark red against everything white in their house. Must be that...

Thunder rolls lowly in the distance and he bites on the end of his pencil at his desk, peering out into the darkness.  The blue has drained from the clouds and it’s just black. Pure foreboding black and it makes Lotor uneasy.

The shed is open, down below.  It’s just a crack. Just a small bit, but it’s...

Maybe it’s the deer.  Lotor, he just...he just wants to see.

He puts his pencil down and walks down the quiet halls.  His father must be asleep or out because there’s not even a shuffle or the sound of a television.

He opens the back door of their house and the sound of rain bombards him.  It’s a rushed hush across the pavement and grass, reaching up at him, warning him.  He doesn’t like it. He doesn’t like what he feels. _Shhh_.

The shed is there across the grass and Lotor steps across the way, pressing his hands against metal.  And slowly, he pushes the door back.

The light’s on up above, casting orange around a dark figure in the center of this damp shed.

It’s his father.  He’s hunched over something, knife in his hand.  There’s a sheet on the ground. And blood everywhere.

Lotor just stands there.  Stares.

He feels like he’s twelve again, at their old house, staring at his father curled around his dead mother, only this time, it’s Shiro’s who’s beneath him.

...It’s Shiro.

Shiro, who Lotor’s known since they were just toddlers.  Shiro, who is always smiling, always sweet, always brave.

The black hair.  The form. The face.  He’s still, lifeless.

Lotor’s in shock.

His father turns slowly, eyes lifting.

“...Lotor...”  He murmurs.

Lotor can’t even speak.  He just stands. He just stands...  Shiro’s mouth is parted, his eyes are cracked open, but glazed.  They’re glazed. And empty. And his arm is gone. And that blood, all that blood everywhere, in their home, on his father’s clothes, it’s _him_ .  It wasn’t a deer at all.  It’s _him_ .  It’s _Shiro_.

Shiro, golden and warm, who will laugh at anything.  Shiro, the one who will defend Lotor when people call him something petty.  Shiro, who’s always been at his side unconditionally, because that’s the sort of good person that he is, no matter how ugly Lotor inevitably becomes.

And now he’s on the floor of Lotor’s backyard, bathed in a puddle of his own blood.

The sound Lotor makes is like a torn wheeze.  He just stands there.

His father bows his head, knife clenched tightly in his hand.  “You weren’t supposed to see this.” He says it so calmly, like it’s a present Lotor accidentally saw before it was fully wrapped.  But no. It’s his best friend.

“What - the - _fuck_ !  Is he _dead_ ?!”  Lotor’s voice cracks.  He grips at his hair and yells, “ _Did you do this?!”_

His father doesn’t respond.  Shiro’s arm is still leaking red.  There’s a tie around the end of it, working as a half-assed tourniquet.  His head is turned to the side like he’s just this _doll_ .  Like this sick broken doll.  But no... _no_ .  Lotor just saw him today.  Just a few hours ago. He was laughing.  He was happy. He was as golden as he ever is.  He _just_ posted that picture online.  Lotor _just_ saw it; his phone is probably still opened to that page.  This can’t be real. This _can’t be real_.

“He’s not dead yet,” his father mutters, standing.  He looks down at Shiro too. And then he turns his eyes up to Lotor.  “It’s for the best, you know. He was just going to keep taking from you and taking from you until you were bled dry.  It was going to destroy you. This is a good thing. For everyone. Don’t you see? That scholarship should’ve been yours.”

“The...the _what_ ?”  Lotor wheezes, pressing a hand over his face.  “What have you done? What have you _done_ ?!  This- this is _Shiro_ !  We have to call someone...  We have to get him to a hospital...”  His mind is tumbling. He doesn’t know what he needs or what to ask.  This has to be some sort of nightmare. “ _Why?!  Why!”_

“...How many times have I asked that, but never heard an answer...?”

“What...?” Lotor whispers, still stunned, staring.  “A hospital... I need to call -”

His father chuckles quietly.  “...It’s too late for that. Here,” he says, gesturing Lotor closer.  “He’s suffering now. Do you see it? Come here.”

Lotor’s trembling.  There’s so much blood.  There’s so much.

“ _Come here_.”  His voice booms.

Lotor walks in slowly, mechanically.

“Good.”  He leans down and grabs Shiro’s chin in his hand.  He jerks his face up roughly, the spots of blood slipping down his pale cheek and into his hair.  Lotor trembles. “Look at him. ...Look. You can see him, fading. It’s just like when your mother was dying.  In the beginning, she begged me to save her. I thought maybe I could. She fought...so hard. Like a butterfly with its wings pinned, with them clipped right off its body.  She fought, and she fought, and she fought...she was the strongest person I knew... But in the end, she asked me to kill her. She wanted me to end her life. ...I was a coward.  I couldn’t do it.”

He lets go of Shiro’s face, watches as his neck stretches back and tilts.  “I know you cared for him. Trust me, it’s better this way for him. This is a kindness.  He was at the top of the world this morning... I was there once, too. Now, he’ll never have to see what reality is.  How it strips and weathers. He will never have to feel this pain that you and I know so well. He will never have his loved ones torn from his hands.  He will never mourn for anything. He’s the lucky one. This is how he’ll escape it.”

Lotor falls to his knees.  Shiro’s bleeding out...maybe he already has.  The lucky one? He’s dying on the floor. Lotor scrounges around the shed for something, anything to stop the bleeding.  He finds a towel and desperately presses it to the stump on Shiro’s arm.

“Oh, god,” he whispers as it soaks through. He clings to it tighter.  “...Shiro...”

“Take the knife, Lotor.”

“Are you _insane_ ?!  What the hell is wrong with you?!  He’s my best friend! He was there for me when you _never were_ ...  And now you think I’ll just obey you?  That I can just kill him?! As a _kindness_?!”

“You think stopping the bleeding is a kindness?  What’s crueler, do you think? Letting him die a slow painful death?  Or ending it in one quick moment? What do you want, Lotor? To see him suffer?  You think that’s being a good friend? Is that not cruel?”

Lotor clings to Shiro, watching his blank face in horror.

His father holds the knife out to him.  “Will you end his suffering? Or are you too much of a coward, like I was, for your mother...?  Will you just let him die out slowly, painfully?”

“I’m calling an ambulance,” Lotor spits.

His father watches him for a long moment and then he laughs lowly.  “...I wouldn’t, if I were you.”

Lotor stares up at him, shaking with rage, with hurt, with fear.  His father is so calm. So cold. “...Why?” Lotor grits out.

“I’ll tell you why,” he murmurs, leaning down to get into Lotor’s face.  In one sudden strike, his arm pushes into Lotor’s chest and he forces him back, hitting his head hard against the wall.  His grip is so tight that it hurts. Lotor struggles for breath. His father leans his face in so closely that Lotor can feel his breath, like fire as he spews lowly.  “Because I know how you love the Shiroganes. I know it’s not just Shiro. I know where they all live: which room his precious brother sleeps in, which building his parents work...  And I know you think you owe them. I’ll go for the little brother first. He won’t be a problem, especially not after he discovers his only brother’s missing; he’s going to be a wreck.  And then I’ll pick off his parents, one by one, so they fear me coming. So they suffer before it happens. And then, when you’ve seen them all in their graves, I’ll come after you at night, when you’re asleep and don’t know it’s coming.  And then I will kill you. And that will be the end of you.”

He lets his grip loosen and Lotor slips to the ground, shaking.

What’s happening?  His mind can’t comprehend.  He can still feel the air restricted from his lungs, just like his father had wanted.

“I’m your son,” is all that Lotor can force out.

His father’s shadow looms.  “Consider it a kindness. Say a word about this.  Any word to anyone and I will know. Give any hint, any _whisper_ and Shiro’s brother will be the next one to go.  And it will be your fault. Because this is your choice.  Will you save them? Will you kill them? Their lives are in your hands.  Do with it what you will.”

He begins to walk out.

“A-and Shiro?”  Lotor forces out.

He pauses, considers it, and then looks behind himself at Shiro on the floor, like he’s a prize he won.  “That’s up to you... Might I suggest the knife?” And he walks back out into the rain, night swallowing him whole.

Lotor looks over at Shiro.  At his limp, still form.

This isn’t just some stranger.  This isn’t just a normal friend.  This is Shiro. He and his family have given him so much and he...  One day, he thought, one day he’d repay it, but this is... What his father has done...  It’s...

This isn’t what was supposed to happen.  Not in this sleepy quiet town. Not to his best friend.  This is another world, another life, a movie, not reality.

He can’t do this.  He’s just barely a legal adult.  He doesn’t know _how_.

He can’t think.  He still thinks he’s in some sort of twisted dream.  He sits there beside Shiro, waiting to wake up.

He doesn’t.

“...Shiro?”  He tries. “Shiro.  Oh, god, how do I...  What do I do...? What would you do?”

He’s bleeding out.  Lotor’s got to stop the bleeding, but...but how...?  The towel won’t do.

Maybe... Maybe?  He looks up to the stove in the corner and watches as it flares red.  The risks...

 _Do you really want him to suffer_?

Lotor looks down at Shiro.  At his blood splattered face.  He doesn’t want him to suffer. He wants Shiro back in the warmth of his room, posting stupid pictures on social media for everyone to like.  He wants Shiro as far away from here as possible. But that’s not one of the options.

Suffering...or death...

If the roles were reversed?  If it were Lotor there?

Shiro would fight.  He would fight for him.

Lotor grabs a metal pipe in the corner and heats it.

He presses his lips together as he stares at the end of Shiro’s arm.  Holding back a sob, he presses the heated metal to flesh and looks away.

 

He sits on the hood of his new car, smiling over at something his friend says.  He doesn’t know what they’re saying. But he’s lived a lifetime pretending he’s not hurt.  He thinks he’s good at it by now.

He has a new car, and he thinks distantly, that some part of him should be happy.  It’s the one he’s always wanted. But he’s never felt sicker with the world, with himself.  His father gave it to him this morning, as a present, as some sort of bribe, maybe, distantly, a kind of apology.  And Lotor hates that he had to take the keys. Hates how he has to see everyone’s faces turn to him and frown with suspicion because _why today of all days...?_

Maybe Shiro will get better, he hopes.  He tries to believe. Shiro’s always been strong.  If he could just...wake up. If Lotor could tell him to fight... Wouldn’t it be enough?

But everyone’s acting like he’s already dead.  Ryou’s screaming in the hallways, starting fights with that handicapped kid.  Their mother sobs as they find his shirt in the road.

Everyone mourns.  No one believes. Lotor feels it too and he hears his father’s words in his head.  ...If Shiro’s just going to die anyways...wouldn’t ending his suffering truly be a kindness...?

It’s Keith Kogane who comes to him.  Acxa’s brother.

He’s a little thing, always hunching his shoulders and tossing suspicious looks at everyone like he’ll clock them out if the moment calls for it.  He always has dark shadows under his eyes like he never sleeps. He has nothing to do with Shiro. Nothing to do with anyone. He’s a lone wolf who likes it that way, quiet to a fault, and Lotor’s never had any reason to interact with him.

But it’s Keith who comes to him, at his very own house, this fire in his eyes - a light that’s fueled by something in his spirit and it irritates Lotor for some reason, just the same way Shiro irritated him.

It’s hope.  It’s belief.  It’s a steadfastness that proclaims loudly, _I will_ .  It doesn’t whisper, _can I_?

Lotor wants to punch it right off his face.  But Keith is asking about Shiro, and he’ll admit, it interests him.  Shiro is just out, a few feet away, in the backyard, and Keith is here, at the front door, asking.

But what could a small boy like Keith do...?  Especially if someone like Lotor is powerless...

It is easy to write off someone like Keith Kogane.  So that’s what he does.

 

“He was behind our house,” Ryou wheezes into the phone, riled up, sounding like he’s about to go grab a torch and pitchfork and skewer Keith through.  “He was talking to himself, saying something about another person being there, I don’t _know_.  But why was he behind our house?!  He probably did it!”

Lotor has his hand on Shiro’s cold body, looking down as his face...the color is strange.  Grey. He gently tugs a blanket over his chest, looks over to the syringe and sighs.

“...Ryou,” he says tiredly into the phone.  “I don’t think it was Kogane. He’s just trying to play cop and robber.  He wants to be a hero. That’s all.”

“But if you just _tell the police_ -!”

“Tell them _what_ , Ryou?  That he’s _strange_ and awkward?  They already know.  Chief Holt’s known him since forever.  Their families are close. And what’s my word have to do with anything...?  I’m a suspect, remember?”

He tries to sit Shiro up.  Tries to rouse him so he can swallow, but he’s hardly had any luck.  Just little drowsy rolls of the eyes, faint movement of his chest drawing in breath.

 _Come on_ , he pleads mentally.   _Come on_ , _just a little_.

“They don’t believe me,” Ryou hisses. “I tried, but they said there’s no way...”

“I don’t think he did it either.”

Ryou growls angrily and there’s a crash on the other side of phone.

Lotor closes his eyes and says lowly, “Ryou, maybe...maybe he’s in pain someplace...  Maybe we just...need to let him go. Maybe that would be better for him?”

“ _No_ !”  Ryou screams.  “ _No!_  He’s my _brother_.  You can’t possibly understand how this feels!  You’ve never had a sibling. You’ve never had this!  You don’t know what it’s like!”

Lotor’s quiet.  “...You’re right.  I don’t know what it’s like.  ...But what about how Shiro feels?  What if he’s suffering? What if there’s nothing to be done?  What if it’s hopeless?”

“ _Fuck.  You_.”  Ryou breathes and then the line goes dead.

Lotor sighs as he slips his phone away.  He stares down at Shiro’s body. At how far gone he already looks and it’s only been days...

What’s right...?  What’s best for Shiro?  What is the hard truth? Lotor doesn’t want Shiro to hurt anymore...  The antibiotics he stole from the clinic can only do so much and Lotor can’t seem to figure out how to get Shiro to drink or eat.  But if Lotor disobeys his father... If he brings Shiro to get the help he needs...

He doesn’t know what to do.  Ryou is like a brother to him too.  He’s been there with them since Lotor can remember, trailing after them, admiring them...  He can’t lose them both. Not because of him.

And beyond that, Lotor is scared.  He has nowhere else to go but here.  Could his father really hurt him? Kill him?  He doesn’t know, but any bit of safety he might have ever felt is gone.  It’s like there’s always a knife at his neck, eyes on his back, watching his every move.  He can’t disobey. He can’t. He’s being watched.

He heaves Shiro up into his arms, sitting him up again.  “Come on,” he commands. “Wake up. You have to drink. You have to eat.   _Wake up_ .   _Wake up_!”

And he stays like that for hours, trying to rouse Shiro.  He stays there beside Shiro until his back aches, until his throat hurts from pleading.  He stays until Shiro’s brow furrows slightly - just slightly - and he listens. And he drinks.

 

Lotor’s on his back on his bed, browsing through his phone, trying to ignore the shed he knows is down below, with his best friend’s body.  They lock it now, like a secret hidden away. But Lotor feels it in his heart constantly.

When he hears the front door slamming and his father cursing and the maids running frantically through the house, he wants to pretend he doesn’t know what it means.

He goes downstairs anyway.

He sees the blood.

He meets his father’s eyes.

“A deer,” his father says, holding his eyes with a look that threatens.

The maids whisper, “oh, how horrible!”

When they leave, it is Lotor who speaks first.  “...Who was it this time?”

“No one you know.  Some random hiker in the woods.  We need it to throw the police off.  They’ve interviewed me several times now.”

His father is calm.  His father acts like nothing happened.  Like there isn’t blood on his hands again.  “They’ve asked me too,” Lotor says.

“Then this will be good for both of us.”

Lotor takes in a trembling breath and walks back up to his room.  He looks at the phone. Stretches his hand out to call. But he can’t.  He can’t.

He thinks of Ryou, sleeping in his room, defenseless.  He thinks of the way his father’s eyes had looked blank as he’d tossed Lotor to the side of the shed, hurting him without remorse.  It was so easy for him. It’s like Lotor doesn’t even know him.

He’s so scared.  He can’t do it. His hand shies away, though his mind screams at him.

He can’t.  He just can’t.  He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes until he sees spots.  He lets out a small sob.

He’s a coward.

 

Keith Kogane is suspicious.  Outside the school, in the hallways, in his absences, in his tardiness.  Everything he does just _screams_ suspicious.  At the funeral, he is _literally sneaking_ beneath a rope that says in bold words ‘DO NOT ENTER’.  He thinks no one can see him, but Lotor does. And if Lotor does and he’s not even looking, it means his father does, because he _is_ looking.

Keith Kogane is going to get himself killed.  And somehow, his tenacity still reminds him of Shiro.  His good-hearted intention. It sickens Lotor.

Shiro would have really liked Keith Kogane.  Shiro would not want this. And if Lotor can’t do anything else, at least he can try to do this.

“Give up,” Lotor tries to tell Keith, but there’s that something in his eyes that tells Lotor Keith’s answer before he even gives it.

Lotor’s tired of brats, tired of people disregarding him, just as Keith does, but he knows Shiro would want him to dissuade Keith.  He knows Shiro wouldn’t want anyone else to get hurt because of him.

 _You’re going to die if you don’t_ , Lotor wants to promise him, but he can’t tell it with all the certainty he has.

He uses every excuse he can to make it seem impossible, but still, Keith’s fire doesn’t blot out.  And it’s Keith who overpowers Lotor and he realizes there’s nothing he can do. Again.

 _I’m sorry, Shiro_ , he thinks as he heads out angrily, knowing he hasn’t convinced Keith of anything.  It’s just another dead body and more blood on Lotor’s hands.

 

The night Haggar’s house catches fire, Lotor thinks he knows who did it.  But then he sees the stunned look of glowing disbelief on his father’s face, like the planets all aligned for him, and Lotor blinks in confusion.

His father didn’t light her house on fire.  So...who did? He immediately looks for Keith and spots him sagging back into the bleachers, looking pale and sick.  He’s wilting too, like Shiro. Everyday, they both look worse.

He does not wear his father’s grin.  He looks as confused and as weary as Lotor feels.  But everyone’s celebrating.

 _They found his murderer_ , people are saying, congratulating.  And Lotor tries to act, tries to pretend, tries to be normal, like he doesn’t know the truth, but he _does_ .  He does and Shiro’s still _alive_ and Lotor’s too much of a coward to do anything and people are celebrating like Shiro’s been righted, but they’re _wrong_ .  They all couldn’t be more _wrong_.

He can’t take it.  This feels like Shiro’s blood on his hands.  Everyday, it feels like it, so he leaves. He speeds through the forests faster than he knows is safe, but he doesn’t care if he crashes.  Maybe then Shiro can finally find peace, he can finally rest. Maybe then, Lotor won’t be able to cling to him anymore and keep him in this stasis, suffering because of Lotor’s cowardice.

Lotor runs to their backyard and bursts into the shed.  He turns on the light and stares down at the body.

“What do you want, Shiro?”  Lotor asks, breath shaking. “Tell me what to do.  I’m the wrong person to ask. This is too much responsibility in my hands.  I don’t know. I don’t know anymore. Is this cruel? Is this the wrong thing?  What do you _want_?”

But of course, Shiro doesn’t answer.

But Lotor’s a coward.  He knows he can’t do it even if he wanted to.  Draw the blade across his friend’s neck? Stab it into his heart?  ...No.

No.

Lotor closes the doors and presses his forehead to them, clenching his eyes shut tightly.  Even if it’s the right thing to do, he can’t. The thought hurts too much. He can’t do that to Shiro.  Not to him.

He takes a long hot shower, tries to wash away the feeling this day has left on him, but it stays.  He’s cold in his heart. He feels it shriveling. Dying. Whatever goodness Shiro saved in him is being warped and twisted.  He doesn’t know what’s good or what’s bad. He can’t trust himself anymore.

Everything feels _wrong_.  ...He feels wrong.

When he goes into his room, ready to try to sleep it off, he sees out the large glass window, the lights of the shed blaring through the darkness.

Zarkon is in there.

 _No_.

Lotor sprints down the staircase and pushes out the doors.  “No!” He screams, as he sees his father turn around to look at him, halfway through stuffing Shiro’s body in a bag.  “This was _my_ choice!  That’s what you told me!  You don’t get to kill him!”

His father tilts his head back and inhales deeply, slowly.  There’s irritation on his brow, like he’s dealing with a child who’s throwing an irrational fit.  “...It’s time, Lotor. You can’t cling to him like this. It’s not good for you.”

“And killing my best friend _is_?”

“He won’t survive like this.  You know he won’t. You’ve only been prolonging the inevitable, dragging him through the last moments of his life like a _selfish brat_.  Here’s your lesson: you chose wrong.  If only you had learned it with your mother, but I suppose you’ll learn it now.”

“Don’t pretend this was for me,” Lotor’s voice shakes.  “Don’t pretend this is about lessons and teaching! You wanted to kill him so you did, and that’s all this is.”

“Say your last words to him, Lotor,” he says tiredly.  He shifts the bag and pulls it up and over Shiro, like he’s already dead.  Like he’s trash.

“ _No_ .   _Don’t touch him_ ,” Lotor hisses, rushing forward, pulling the bag from his hands.

His father blinks at him in surprise.  He didn’t expect him to rebel.

He punches Lotor hard in the gut, knocking the wind out of him.  Before Lotor can comprehend what happened, his father is grabbing him tightly by the neck, so tight that Lotor can’t gasp in breath.  He’s choking. He struggles, but he’s scared. The fear in him is drowning out his senses and he can’t fight, he can only succumb.

“ _Never_ tell me what to do,” his father breathes, inches from Lotor’s face.  His hand tightens and Lotor’s mind freezes up. This is his _father_?  The one who would go out Christmas shopping with Lotor for his mother?  The one who used to give Lotor piggyback rides and smile and laugh? His eyes are so empty...

Will he kill him?  Will he crush the bones in Lotor’s throw and toss him away?

But his father seems to realize himself at the last second and he drops Lotor to the ground, taking a step back and running a distraught hand through his hair.

Lotor tries to gather himself quickly.  Tries to be brave in the face of this.

When his father kneels back down to tighten the tie on the bag, Lotor staggers to his feet.  “What kind of lesson is it if you take over halfway...?” Lotor coughs.

“They think it’s Haggar,” he says.  “There needs to be a body and then this will all be over.”

“They already have a body!”  Lotor says, scrambling to gather Shiro in his arms.  “They think it’s him! And her house burned down in the fire...she lives in a cemetery.  A body could be in any one of those. Everyone’s saying it’s over! Even the Chief’s son.  I heard him. It’s done. ...No one is looking for him. Please. He doesn’t have long left...  But please, just...just give me what’s left of it. ...Please.”

He feels like he’s begging his father to let him keep a wounded puppy they found on the streets.

His father loved Honerva.  He loved her more than the moon and the stars.  He loved her so much that when she died, his heart died with her.

Her last request was she care for Lotor.  ...Maybe his father doesn’t love him anymore, but he loved Honerva.  He can hurt Lotor all he wants, but there’s still _something_ there.  He knows it.  Something, deep down inside.

Lotor’s his son.  And if not that, Lotor is his _mother’s_ son.

“If anyone finds the body,” his father says, “I’m telling them you did it.”

Lotor nods quickly.  “Okay,” he breathes, relief flooding through him so quickly, he has to fight to hold back the tears.  “Okay, that’s fine.”

 

It’s Keith who finds the body.  Of course it’s Keith.

They heard a loud bang outside that mimics thunder and Lotor’s stomach sinks.

He stands at the back door and watches as his father moves Shiro.  Keith was right there. He was so close. He could’ve saved him. Lotor can’t move for how sick he is with disappointment, with grief.

Keith has the power to do what Lotor cannot, but still, his aim was off.  Just slightly off. He missed.

The police come.  They look through the shed, but there’s nothing there anymore, they look to Lotor’s dad, but they sigh and turn to Keith.  Keith, who’s screaming like a dying animal. Keith, who’s hysterical. Lotor can hardly breathe as he watches.

“ _You did this!_ ”  Keith screams, primal and fierce and almost a monster himself as he tries to tear through space to reach Lotor’s father.  He doesn’t seem so small anymore. Lotor takes a step back in the face of it. “ _You have Shiro!  Give him BACK_!”

His voice roars through the backyard, bouncing off the trees.

And Lotor almost can’t believe how the police all look on with pity.  How the Chief’s face crumples and he grits his teeth because _Keith is sick_ .   _Keith is fucked up_.

No one sees it.

No one believes him.  Lotor still can’t breathe.

His father’s expression is quiet, staring on with sympathy, the perfect mask.  But Lotor can see the hidden glee deep in his eyes and he already knows what this means.  What his father is seeing.

Keith’s given them a way out.  Keith is going to be the one to take the fall if Haggar doesn’t go through.  He’s made it so easy. Everyone can see his insanity here, plain as day.

Lotor turns back to Keith, at the way his eyes are bleeding with pain, as he roars and fights to _get to Shiro_.

 _It’s true_ , Lotor wants to say, _he’s right!_ but the words are tied in his throat.  What about Ryou? What about Shiro’s family?  What about himself? Will the police pull through for Lotor in the way they’re turning their back to Keith?  Lotor can still feel the tight grip of his father’s hand around his throat. The way he had crushed his windpipe.  The fear rises up in his throat and incapacitates him.

He’s breathing hard.  If he says something, he’s dead.  But they’re right here... If he just...

If he can just open his mouth.  Say something. Anything.

 _Do it_ , he begs himself.   _Back him up!_

They’re right there.  Shiro doesn’t have much longer.  He needs this. Keith needs this.

“Come on,” Lotor’s father says, pretending, placing a gentle hand on Lotor’s shoulder as he nods him inside.

Keith’s still howling and gripping onto the Chief, pleading.

No one listens to him.

Lotor stares hollowly into their dark empty house.  He can’t believe it.

 

Shiro’s body disappears after that.  Lotor spends time in his room, alone. He checks his phone, but there’s no one on his feed he’s interested in.  No obnoxious pictures or glorious smiles. It’s just emptiness.

It’s all his fault.

Everyone’s talking about Keith Kogane.  About how he went off the deep end. How he saw a bag of leaves and thought it was a body, even though the whole case with Shiro has been tied up.

Everyone’s wondering about him, a low buzzing over the floor of their town.  There only needs to be one more whisper, one more push, and their suspicions will turn sharp, pinning Keith Kogane, branding him the murderer.

He made it too easy.

But life goes on and there’s nothing Lotor can do.  There never is. He’s not brave, like Shiro, or stubborn and fiery, like Keith.  He’s just Lotor, the unwanted, twisted, heartless child. Loveless. A coward. He let Shiro suffer and now he’s gone.  Who knows where he is.

Lotor wants to get out of here.  He can’t live with his father anymore, in this horror, and in order to do that, he needs to go to school, he needs to play football.  He needs that scholarship that was Shiro’s, even if the thought makes him sick. It’s his only way out. He’s the best player on the team now, without a doubt...  He’ll take whatever scholarship he can, he doesn’t care. He just has to go.

The field feels empty without Shiro.  He doubts it’ll ever feel the same. This game feels pointless.  What’s the point in beating everyone else if you don’t give a shit about them?

His father’s been acting strangely.  Going into his office, coming out, looking around, eyes not even following the game, but the edges of the forests.  Waiting.

And when he disappears, Lotor has half a mind to go after him...but he doesn’t.  And when his father comes out, quiet and angry, he knows something went wrong.

...That’s when he sees Keith.

Mid-game, Lotor stops to stare.

Keith, who looks like he’s on his last leg.  Who’s struggling to get his crutches to propel him forward, even as his face is white, even as his eyes burn black with the last of his energy reserves.  They’re overwhelmed and empty and drowning in terror. Keith, who everyone says is insane now, whose reputation is shot. Somehow, and Lotor doesn’t know how, he just...keeps going.

Lotor stares.

Keith has so little, but that fire is burning so brightly.  He didn’t even know Shiro... He didn’t owe Shiro anything, but he tries _so hard_.

And Lotor...  What has Lotor done...?

He wants to follow after, but he sees his father watching him, trying to follow his gaze, and he realizes that’d do more harm than help.  He pretends the rest of the game, watching his father from his peripheral.

Lotor can’t do this anymore.  He can’t keep pretending. Shiro’s family went to Japan.  Now, the only person in danger is him.

And Keith, who didn’t know him, Keith’s throwing his life away...he has to know by now.  He has to...

If Keith, someone who didn’t know Shiro - Keith, who looks like that...  If he can keep going, there’s no excuse left.

It’s Lotor’s turn to step up.

It’s Shiro or him.

There are so many people who loved Shiro, who have cried over him, even strangers, like Keith.  Lotor knows no one will mourn him if he goes. The only one who might’ve was Shiro.

He owes Shiro this.  He has since they were children.

If it’s Shiro or him...he has to choose Shiro.

 

He watches his father.  He _knows_ if he’s patient, he’ll find Shiro.  It’s easy in a glass house.

The second he sees his father hefting bags of gravel into the back of his truck, Lotor sneaks out the back and kneels beside the side of his house.  Waits.

When his father goes into the front cab and turns the truck on, Lotor darts out and jumps into the back, ducking out of view.

The truck begins to drive...  They’re moving down the road. Through Northside’s gates.  He keeps driving on the road and Lotor begins to realize just how close to Keith’s house they’ve become.  Then he makes a strange turn off the road and goes into the forest.

The ground is so waterlogged that there are no tracks.  It’s raining so hard and Lotor is getting soaked.

He didn’t bring anything to defend himself with.  He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he’s caught. ...Will his father kill him...?  Is Shiro dead? Is this for nothing?

The truck stops and Lotor slips over the passenger’s side of the truck, staying low to the ground.

It looks just like any other bit of the forest...but there’s a well deep in the shadows and suddenly the gravel makes sense.  He’s going to bury Shiro.

He can’t be the only person to know this.  He doesn’t want to bring this secret with him to the grave if this is the end for him, so he slips out of his hiding place and runs into the trees, out of sight.  He takes his phone out. He can hear his father heaving a bag out of the back of his truck and he slips and stumbles over the keys on his phone, trying to ask any of his friends who might know Keith’s number.

He’s lucky.  He can hear his father unloading all the bags first.  It gives him time.

It’s Matt who has the number, and when Lotor punches it in, it rings.  And rings. And rings. He grits his teeth and pinches his eyebrows together.  If only Keith knew what this phone call was. If only he’d answer... But his answering machine picks up and he angrily cancels the call.

...Maybe he shouldn’t have.  Maybe a message is just as good.

He goes to dial in the number again when he feels something hard and cold press against the side of his head.

He looks up into the trees blankly as he realizes what it is.

His father has a gun to his head.

“Who are you calling?”  His father mutters.

“N-no one,” he breathes.

“Let me see the phone.”

“I wasn’t calling anyone,” Lotor says, firmer this time.  He doesn’t move. Can’t think much further than the gun at his temple.

The phone rings.  He doesn’t have Keith’s contact info in his phone, so he hopes the random numbers will mean nothing to his father, but his father presses the gun into his head harder and unlocks the safety.  It clicks loudly in his ears.

“Give me the phone,” his dad says lowly again, so Lotor does, shuddering.

His father answers the phone, pressing it to his ear and listening.  And Lotor can hear, even from where he is, the confusion in Keith’s voice, “Hello?  ...Lotor?”

He knows his father will recognize the voice.  Keith’s is distinctively his, smooth somehow even with a bit of that rasp.  His father drops the phone to the ground in front of Lotor and crushes it beneath his foot.  “I told you not to call anyone,” he says. “Do you know what happens when you disobey?”

“Where is he?”  Lotor asks.

His father stares down at him for another second and then lifts the gun to bring it down hard against Lotor’s cheek.  His head cracks to the side and he grunts beneath the shock of it.

“He’s dead.”

Lotor feels it cold within himself every time he hears it.  “...I want to see the body,” he breathes.

His father laughs, low and deep in his chest as the thunder begins to roll in the distance.  “I don’t think you want to ask that. His cold lifeless body is down at the bottom of the well.  If you see him, you’ll be dead.”

Lotor’s chest is heaving.  “Then I guess that’s what you’ll have to do.  I’ve told him,” Lotor says to his father. “I’ve told Keith where Shiro is, where we both are.  He knows. He’s going to call the police. He’s coming now.”

His father turns and backhands him hard against the face.  It’s almost worse than when the gun hit him. The force of it hits his skull to the back of the tree and he feels as his world twists and shakes.

“You’ve been nothing but a thorn in my side since the day you were born,” his father breathes angrily, grabbing Lotor by the shirt and pulling him up, jostling him.  He hits Lotor against the tree as Lotor grits his teeth against it.

“I know,” Lotor breathes.  “I know you didn’t want this.  I didn’t either... I miss her every day.  I wish she was still here, with us, but she’s not.  She’s _not_ and she won’t come back.  No matter how many people you kill.  Please,” Lotor says softly, looking into the strange wired blankness of his father’s eyes that he swears isn’t really him.  Isn’t the him Lotor remembers. “Let’s call the police. It can be anonymously reported. Shiro doesn’t deserve this. This won’t bring her back.”

His father is quiet for awhile as he thinks.  Slowly, he releases his grip on Lotor’s shirt.  “I thought you said you told Kogane.”

“I...”

He aims and points the gun.  He’s going to do it. Lotor truly believes that.  There’s nothing in his father’s eyes anymore.

The gun stays there, trained right at him.  What Lotor doesn’t expect is the shake of his hand, the slight flit of emotion to cross his father’s face.

“...The last thing Honerva asked of me,” his father whispers into the quiet of the forest, “...was to take care of you...”

Lotor breathes through it, still staring up at the darkness inside the gun’s barrel.

“Go,” his father whispers, hand shaking so hard he can hear the audible clacking of the gun in his hand.

Lotor is still frozen.

“ _GO_!”  His father bellows and kicks him hard in the side to wake him up.

Lotor pushes himself up and away, quickly scrambling to his feet.  Lotor looks to the well. He knows how close he is. He knows if he just...just gets there somehow...

“The next time I see you, I won’t give you another chance!”  He roars. “I _will kill you_.  This is just...this is for Honerva.”

Lotor runs.  He runs and he doesn’t look back.

He wishes he could be brave like Shiro, but he’s never managed it.  Who’s he kidding? He doesn’t have Shiro’s goodness, his grin, his golden aura.  Lotor is just Lotor, unloved, twisted and cold. No one’s loved him. No one. There’s nothing he can do.

From the moment he saw his mother die, he knew...he knew he’d only ever turn out like _this_.

Like a coward.  Like his father.  He can’t do anything right.  ...He doesn’t even know what right is.

He runs.  He needs to find a phone - and quickly - to get ahold of the police, to get ahold of Keith.  He needs to tell him because it’s so close to his house.

Don’t go into the forest.

Don’t go into the forest.

But by the time he calls Keith again, it’s already too late.

  



End file.
